


Declaration of Intent

by CornerSwords



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Death Threats, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Interview Fic, Marinette would straight up merc a dude and not even feel bad about it, also i kind of lied its only the one death threat, coming out of the gate swinging, no beta we die like idiots, okay she would feel a little bad, she's not a monster, there's a comment bit at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CornerSwords/pseuds/CornerSwords
Summary: After a fight that puts Marinette under a bit more stress than usual, Ladybug bargains an interview with Alya for the intrepid journalist to not run after Akuma for a while.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth & Soiled Undergarments
Comments: 17
Kudos: 80





	Declaration of Intent

“ _Bonjour,_ Ladybloggers! I’m here with Ladybug – not live, of course, I want to edit this a bit – to answer a few hot questions that’ve been on everyone’s mind!”

“In exchange for not running after any Akuma for two and a half weeks.” Ladybug cut in, glaring playfully at Alya Cesaire, amateur journalist extraordinaire, and her massive, unapologetic grin. “That was the most I could argue her up to, unfortunately. And I barely believe she’ll hold herself to it.”

“Hey, I don’t sell what I don’t own.” the redheaded girl retorted, settling into hers of the two comfortable mini-armchairs set up for the interview. “Anyways! Let’s start off with the obvious question-!”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me ask-!”

“No, Chat and I are still not together as anything other than partners. Close partners,” Ladybug easily admitted, settling into her chair as well, “but we are _not_ lovers. I know his flirting might have given some people the wrong idea, but that’s been a part of our dynamic for so long now it’d be weirder if he stopped.”

“Oh? I smell a story there, LB – last time I got a chance to ask you about this you said-”

“I know what I said. And so does Chat Noir, who watched that interview.” the spotted heroine cut in, voice firm. “We had a long overdue conversation just… over a month ago, now, and cleared up some very long-standing misconceptions between ourselves. For the record, I’d like to publicly apologize for saying that Chat flirts with everyone last time – that was wrong of me to assume and more wrong to declare in a public forum without ever making an effort to verify it.”

Alya blinked. “Okay. Uh, wow. I was… not expecting that. You two just sat down and talked like straight-up adults, huh?”

“Being totally honest it was more like a shared emotional breakdown, but I’m told that’s actually fairly common in adults when having productive conversations about their feelings.”

“Oookay. All aboard the honesty train today, I guess. Is there anything else you want to…?”

“No, I’m – I just wanted to say that. I’ll… get off the soapbox now, I guess.”

“No, no, it’s actually pretty cool. Healthy relationships and communication. You go, girl.” Alya reassured the now-blushing heroine, grinning toothily again. “I know a couple people who could take pointers on that. But let’s move on, then – the other big one, yeah?”

Ladybug frowned, already looking weary from the mere mention of her mortal nemesis. “Ugh. Do we really have to talk about _Hawkmoth?”_ she asked, accompanied by a candid picture of the butterfly-themed villain being flashed to the side of the screen, from one of his rare personal appearances during Akuma battles – sword drawn from his cane, smirking evilly as he pushed it down on Chat Noir’s baton, and Ladybug’s yo-yo about half an inch from the back of his head.

Alya was immensely proud of that photo.

“I mean, we can go on to the user questions, but the Q&A is mostly identity questions right now and anyone with half a brain already knows your policy on those. I do have a couple of prepared questions?”

“Really? I…”

Ladybug trailed off, then sighed heavily. “I guess I _should_ give an update, at least. It’s always a pain dealing with that big… pain, but we have made some progress. Nothing… too exciting.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

“We’ve struck a couple names from our suspect list, for one, though we actually had to start fresh recently.” Ladybug revealed. “It took us a while to realize that Hawkmoth having a willing accomplice means that it’s possible he himself was Akumatized at some point, since Mayura’s almost certainly been in on it from the beginning or near enough not to matter.”

Alya whistled lowly. “Oh shit, I never even thought about that. That’s actually pretty scary, though I gotta say, I don’t think Mayura could pull off Hawkmoth’s outfit…”

A remarkably well-drawn image of the blue-tinted Peacock villainess struggling with Hawkmoth’s signature dark suit was flashed on-screen, the white butterfly mask already in place as she tried to adjust clothes clearly sized for someone significantly taller. A caption at the bottom of the screen declared it the sole property of one Nathaniel Kurtzberg, on loan to the Ladyblogger.

“The costumes are magic.”

Alya blinked. Then she leaned in, eyes glinting hungrily, as Ladybug shrank into her seat slightly, eyes widening.

“Okay, so you _know_ I’m not just going to let that one slide.” the young journalist said, a shark’s grin on her face, and Ladybug huffed defensively.

“I just mean – look, the costumes are provided by the same magic that gives us powers. They’re auto-tailored.” she explained. “We don’t carry around spandex in our backpacks or anything like that.”

“So _that’s_ why they never bunch up…” Alya muttered, studying Ladybug’s spotted bodysuit with unnerving intensity. “…damn.”

“Should I be worried about you trying to steal my clothes?”

“Eh? I mean, I wouldn’t mind-”

Alya stopped abruptly, a deep blush suddenly darkening her face. “Um.”

“I’m told by reliable sources that I am, quote, ‘everyone’s exception’.” Ladybug deadpanned, folding her hands together demurely. “No shame in it. Unquote.”

 _“Moving right along,”_ as the 98-2% poll that had led to Alya writing that very comment on the Ladyblog one sleepy Saturday night was displayed on-screen, “so, the Q&A! Let’s talk about that?!”

Ladybug grinned, schadenfreude mixed with genuine warmth clear as day, as Alya fumbled with her phone for a moment. A muttering of “no, no, no, creepy, no, no,” a moderately loud bleep, _“no,_ a _ha!”_

“I’m genuinely surprised you found a good one so fast.”

“I am too, it’s still mostly identity questions, but this one looks okay. From FormulaRenault, ‘we know you’re the brains of the hero operation, but is that just natural talent or did you have to work at it’?” Alya read off. Then she winced, tilting her head slightly. “…uh, no offense to Chat Noir or any of the backup team, I presume.”

Ladybug huffed again, a somewhat conflicted look on her face. “Chat’s smarter than he acts, trust me. It takes effort to cram that many puns into one sentence on the spot. But, to answer the actual question… little bit of both? I was – this is something I’ve talked about a little before, but I don’t think it was ever said flat-out on the Ladyblog, so I’m not sure how many people know this, but Chat and I, and all the backup team, we didn’t just stumble onto our powers like Hawkmoth did.”

“Shots fired?” Alya asked, raising an eyebrow. Ladybug grinned, nodding.

“Absolutely. Most of… these powers, they take a certain mindset and a lot of thought to use effectively.” Ladybug confirmed, voice turning serious. “Hawkmoth’s and Mayura’s abilities to create villains – Hawkmoth’s is mostly driven by the victim, which is why Akuma are so wildly varying, so it just requires being a creepy old man who preys on people at their most vulnerable for the sole purpose of convincing them to steal extremely dangerous, extremely important items from others, and also being willing to constantly intrude on people across the city with the emotional equivalent of a camera in their shower.”

 _“Holy shit,_ LB.”

Ladybug raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t disagree at all, but _holy shit._ For all y’all at home, from Ladybug’s mouth; Hawkmoth is a creepy old emotionally abusive voyeur.”

“I will” a loud beep “fight anyone who says otherwise. Time and place, put it on the Ladyblog.”

“SO YEAH. Uh. Powers?”

“Powers! Right. Everyone knows how Hawkmoth’s works, more or less.” Ladybug began again, tone lightening considerably. “Mayura’s is almost all her. I don’t know the cutoff point, but, I mean, a rock doesn’t have opinions on what kind of monster it turns into, yeah? On Paris’ side, though…”

“The fox hero, Rena Rouge, can create illusions, right? I get how that has a lot of creativity involved,” Alya said, tapping her phone thoughtfully against her leg, “and of course everyone knows that you work with what you get when Lucky Charm hits the field, but the others…?”

“It’s mostly about the limitations involved. We get exactly five minutes after using our powers before we have to back off and rest, as is well known, and only one use.” Ladybug said. “Carapace is a wonderful example of a power that needs more thought than you’d think. Shellter allows him to create a shield that’s even tougher than the one he fights with, and it’s flexible enough that he can use it to protect anything, anywhere… but only once, and it puts him on a time limit. So-”

She rolled her eyes. “Chat’s going to be over the moon about this one – believe it or not, _turtling_ is actually a terrible idea with Shellter. So Carapace has to use it more inventively than just making a safe space and figuring out a plan from there.”

“Okay, that makes sense. And I can see how Chat Noir and Queen Bee’s powers could be really hard to handle too, with the restrictions on them.” Alya agreed, shifting in her chair with a bit of a curious frown. “But that doesn’t really answer the question, now that I’m thinking about it – because the question was about _you,_ not everyone’s powers.”

Ladybug blinked, expression blanking for a moment, and then a hint of red crept out from the bottom of her mask. “Oh. Uh, right – well. I mean, at first I was just kind of winging it, but as we got used to the hero thing Chat and I – I mean, our talks aren’t really anything new.” she explained, arms fidgeting slightly as she stared into space somewhere above the camera. “We talk regularly on patrol. Early on, Chat asked a question really similar to this one – well, the basic question was the same, anyways. And, well, that got me thinking about… exactly what I just talked about – the conditions of our powers and how hard they are to use efficiently with the restrictions that they have. So…”

There was a moment of silence after the spotted heroine trailed off, leading her interviewer to lean in, clearly even more curious. “So?”

“Sorry, just – editing out identity stuff. Um. Chat and I talked about it, way back when, and ever since we’ve kind of been… quietly training? There’s not a lot of ways to train creativity, of course, but we actually play some games with strategy or bluffing or stuff in them sometimes – Chat’s terrible at Battleship, by the way – and some video games too. Puzzle games of all stripes, Civilization, I have a Minecraft world that’s past four years old at this point and I _wish_ I could show people some of the stuff I’ve done with it.”

“Huh. And people say games rot your brain.”

“I’m sure some of them do, but we try to stay away from those.” Ladybug said, grinning slightly. “So, answer; both, I was picked for the Ladybug powers because of who I am and what I’m good at, but I’ve been trying to find ways to get better at it without drawing too much attention as a civilian.”

“And considering your record, I’d say you’ve done a damn fine job of it!” Alya chuckled, tapping through her phone again. “Let’s see, no, no, no, ugh let’s just do a prepared question?”

“Hit me.”

“That last fight – Dressinatrix. _That_ was a trip.”

Images from the Ladyblog’s reporting on the fight began to flash on-screen. The Akuma herself, prominent fashion mogul Marie-Paule Vaillancourt, featured prominently – though there were few good pictures of the high-flying Akuma, those few that existed depicted a harpy with massive wings of writhing thread clad in an elaborately detailed suit, directing an army of unwilling minions turned into sadistic seamstresses. A few in particular, prominent in the Ladyblog’s coverage of the fight, were notable by their absence.

“Ah. Yeah. _That.”_ Ladybug sighed, grimacing. “Should’ve figured you’d want to talk about that.”

“I mean, we can stop. I promised to respect your veto, LB.” Alya said, voice firm and resolute despite the note of longing.

“…Is it wrong of me that I’m tempted?” Ladybug prevaricated, leaning back in her chair with eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t really want to talk about what you probably _really_ want to ask about. I read the Ladyblog too, y’know. But at the same time… I mean, it’s exactly why I arranged this interview, too. Because I want to make it clear.”

“We can build up to it.” Alya suggested easily. “I’m a journalist – I’ve got more than one question to ask.”

“…alright. Yeah, that sounds good. Shoot, then.”

One picture in particular was put up on the side of the screen – Chat Noir with a massive grin on his face, and a red-and-black shield in his hand. His baton was mid-swing, leaving nothing to obscure the hastily assembled swath of gray fabric staining red over his left eye, as he stood his ground in the midst of a horde of shrieking harpies in designer dresses in styles that weren’t _quite_ Vaillancourt’s – just a tad more formal than her normal practical designs, with an unusual focus on a central, striking color rather than the eye-catching patterns and symbols the fashionista favored, though they retained her signature focus on ease of wear.

“So. The Lucky Charm.” Alya began.

Ladybug blinked. “Oh. I, uh, thought you’d want to start with why Chat was alone there-”

“LB, no offense, but after _the thing_ I think all of Paris knows why you left Chat Noir to fend for himself for a bit.” the redhead said, blunt as could be. A small blush again darkened the heroine’s cheeks as Alya continued, “what I’m interested in is that shield. There _is_ a pretty solid theory of what that actually is on the forums, but I want it from the bug’s mouth.”

“It’s a heavy industry-grade magnet.” Ladybug replied readily. “The kind cranes use to move stuff, except cranked up to eleven. Honestly, it’s one of the simpler Lucky Charms I’ve gotten.”

 _“Knew it.”_ Alya murmured, her sharp satisfaction still just audible to the camera. “Alright, so – we weren’t able to confirm this before, because that fight got _crazy_ and contrary to popular belief, _this_ reporter is _not_ insane – I assume the popular theory about those needles was also true?”

“Absolutely.” the heroine confirmed. “Threads, needles, it was the whole seamstress shebang. It was also super dangerous, so we had to get weird fast to win that fight – the threads themselves were toughened by magic, but Chat’s claws could break them even without Cataclysm, which is the only reason we escaped the first round without more than a few bad cuts.”

An image of Ladybug wrapped up in what looked like a massive spiderweb, struggling as a harpy reached for her head, popped up on screen. Chat Noir was dropping down from above, baton already poised to strike; it had been a tense moment, and the short scuffle on the web was what had cost him an eye, even if only briefly.

“So, Lucky Charm gives a magnet with a handle, and the Akuma’s power is to empower victims with magic needles. Seems like a match made in heaven, even if it got dicey near the end of the fight. Speaking of which – you feel up to answering the big question?”

“…not yet?” Ladybug said, grinning weakly.

“Well, let’s do one more easy one, yeah? So – the _Launch,”_ Alya said with such obvious relish that it almost _necessitated_ a cut to a clip of the event itself.

Chat Noir was standing in the center of a bridge, smirk wider and smugger than ever before seen on mortal man, absolutely _inundated_ by harpies. Shield and baton in hand, he was looking in the same direction as all of the perched, _stationary_ minions of the main Akuma – the direction of a long, long strip of gray fabric, which began just under his foot and disappeared over the next building before passing out of the shot.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the sound of screeching began to fade in. And then faster. And faster, and faster, until a soft but _empathetic_ _“putain de bordel de **merde”**_ could be heard as the shot quickly shifted up, bringing the winged Akuma into view – and the wildly spinning, shrieking form of none other than Ladybug, screaming through open air in an arc aimed only slightly off from Dressinatrix herself.

The harpy did _not_ manage to dodge Ladybug’s yo-yo, but the shot shifted back to the softly lit interview room before Ladybug’s iconic reel-in kick landed dead center on the Akuma’s nose.

“Ah, yes. The Launch. I suppose you want to know how I pulled that off?” Ladybug said, a small smile on her face. Alya didn’t even have to do anything – the atmosphere of the room screamed _Duh_ loud enough to be heard in Britain, though she _did_ affix Ladybug with a similarly expressive stare just for good measure. Ladybug chuckled, then shrugged.

“It was kind of a dumb plan – we were having serious trouble getting a clear shot at Dressinatrix, but I realized that the seamstress minions didn’t actually control the thread. They controlled the needles, and the thread was just strengthened. But to attach a needle to a thread, they had to put it at one end – and Chat was right there with the magnet, stopping any needles that got too close to him. So, I figured that if I could get a roll of fabric far enough, I could piggyback off their needles while they couldn’t see me with it.”

Alya paused.

“…you ran halfway across Paris with a roll of fabric – and that was _silk,_ I’m like ninety percent sure – for the sole purpose of tricking a bunch of harpies into throwing you at their High Overlady, then kicked her in the face?”

“I was panicking, alright?” Ladybug sighed. “I broke a wall into the fabric store because Chat needed something to put pressure on his eye, and it just kind of _clicked_ when I looked at the roll we were using and the Lucky Charm, and the fabric guy was really nice about us running off with an entire roll of expensive fabric – we even got in contact afterwards just to make sure it got put back by the fix-”

“It _worked,_ though.” Alya pointed out. “And frankly, it was _awesome._ Don’t feel bad because your plan was awesome, LB.”

“I feel bad because I left Chat alone with a super-magnet for a plan that was _full of holes,_ Alya.” Ladybug snapped, before relenting. “I mean, there’s so much that could have gone wrong with that. And I just _left him there.”_

“Chat can manage himself just fine. He’s done more with less.”

 _“That’s not the point._ I – you know what? Ask your big question.” the heroine said, clearly still steamed. Alya, nose twitching slightly as her eyebrow raised in obvious confusion, nevertheless leaned forwards a bit as another image flashed on screen.

It was probably the most in-focus image so far, and it kind of had to be – with Dressinatrix plummeting from the sky, the high-velocity shot was still slightly difficult to discern the details of even with almost perfect lensing. What could be absolutely certain was that that splash of purple just over the sides of the harpy’s face meant Hawkmoth was in on it, Ladybug was struggling to get close against the Akuma’s massive, powerful talons even as the glimmering thread of her yo-yo paralyzed her opponent’s wings, and they were _uncomfortably_ close to ground level already from the immense height Dressinatrix had taken to. At the bottom of the image, bubbling black reached into it, the clear sign of a Cataclysm in progress.

“You two got _seriously_ close to crashing before you managed to pull Mademoiselle Vaillancourt’s item off her.” Alya said, leaning in. “This isn’t the first time you’ve had to save yourself from a freefall, but footage captured just after the incident,” which played on-cue, showing Ladybug swinging through the canal under the bridge where Chat Noir had made his stand, legs brushing into the water at high speed before lifting back up as she came to the up-swing of her arc just at the head of a sweeping wave of glimmering little ladybugs, leaving behind a whooping Chat Noir and a team of very confused fashionistas, “has generated a lot of questions on the Ladyblog. Most prominently, this is far and away the closest you’ve ever come to kissing Mother Earth in a… _permanent_ way, and a lot of people are concerned about what your plan was if you weren’t able to get the Akumatized item in time.”

Ladybug, still obviously somewhat frustrated but slightly calmer, nodded. “Alya, I’m going to be real with you for a moment here. I could tell you that there were strategic reasons, since Chat Noir was about half a second from getting stabbed when I finally spotted the item – a pendant charm, by the way – and I was very low on time at that point, or that I was panicking because of the fall, or even that I was just _that pissed_ at Hawkmoth and Dressinatrix.” she began, voice clear and purposeful. “All of those, however valid, are _not_ what I was thinking. I did, in fact, have a plan. And you are _not_ going to like it.”

Alya blinked. “I mean, as long as it was better than ‘run away and hide forever’, I don’t think-”

“The plan was to snap that bitch like a wishbone before she got my partner killed again.”

There was a moment of silence. Slowly, Alya’s mouth parted slightly – and then dropped into a full-on gape, eyes wide and unblinking as the blue-haired heroine tented her fingers and kept her stoic frown firmly in place.

“…that’s a figure of speech?” Alya squeaked, an odd shade of pale pink discoloring her face.

“I was just about to rip the Akuma physically in two, it is not a miscommunication, Mademoiselle Cesaire.” Ladybug answered.

There was another moment of silence. The interviewer’s face ratcheted up a couple shades towards red. The interviewee’s remained unchanging.

“Ho-kay.” Alya finally managed, pulling her jaw back into place with an audible _click._ “Okay. Um. That’s… unexpectedly violent.”

“It really shouldn’t be. Given the choice between killing an enemy and letting a treasured friend die, I seriously doubt you would choose any differently.” Ladybug replied, smooth as ice and twice as cold.

“Can… um. Can you actually… do that? I mean, that’s…?”

“It would, theoretically, release the akuma butterfly immediately.” Ladybug said, ignoring Alya’s weak protest of _that’s not the question I asked._ “And Miraculous Ladybug would put everything back to rights just as it does for the victims of any Akuma attack and, admittedly, Chat Noir’s own Cataclysm. The Akuma victim wouldn’t even remember the experience, except perhaps as a vague nightmare.”

Then she leaned forwards, eyes narrowing.

“But I didn’t actually think about any of that in the moment. I was willing to take the life of another, permanently, in defense of someone I care deeply about. I still am. And that’s not a bad thing. I’ve already had my breakdowns over this. I would regret my hand being forced for the rest of my life, but I _refuse_ to feel guilty for being willing to resort to lethal retaliation in defense of my partner’s life.”

“Oh my god this is real.” Alya whispered.

“The reason I wanted this interview, Alya, is because I know Hawkmoth watches the Ladyblog.” Ladybug’s voice, chilly and quiet, cut through. “I know he’s watching this, wherever he is. And I know how many times his powers have killed my partner. I know every single time Chat Noir has given his life to save me, or you, or every single person in Paris, and I know that Hawkmoth is responsible for every single one of them.”

Ladybug stood up from her chair. Easy, purposeful steps carried her across the room, and then she got down on one knee, level with the camera’s lens. Sky blue eyes glinted coldly, like hail heavy enough to kill a man on a cloudless day.

“And I want him to know that I’m coming for him.”

* * *

**Latinate**

_Holy shit this is real._

**14 replies, 4.3k score**

**PenguIce**

i have the weirdest boner right now

**User banned. Replies and score hidden.**

**BagoTactic**

Disgraceful. I can’t believe you people are praising someone for _contemplating murder._

**182 replies, -2.3k score**

**MaximumOverNumber**

Can I just say it’s nice to hear that Ladybug and Chat Noir apparently checked with the fabric store owner after the fight to make sure he was okay? That’s the kind of quality heroics you only get from them, folks.

**42 replies, 1.9k score**

**CheerupExpert**

You know I never really thought about how Hawkmoth is basically watching all of us for emotional weakness. I would have been happier not thinking about it. I can never shower again.

**106 replies, 5.7k score**

**Enliven**

Okay I know this is 200% terrifying but can we take a moment to stan Chat Noir because seriously Ladybug’s right he’s died _so many times **and no one talks about it**_

**99 replies, 8.2k score**

**Foxno**

Hawkmoth’s fucked.

**10.1k score**

**Author's Note:**

> So hey yeah I'm new here. Not to fanfiction in general, but I have left my past behind me. And apparently this is what I want to put up here first.
> 
> Thoughts?


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